Study on possibility of changing rice cultivation system from irrigation to aerobic condition in Mazandaran provinc

Water shortage and its consumption resulted in development of a suitable rice cultivation system which use less water. Therefore، this preliminary research was carried out to study the possibility of coversion of irrigated system of rice cultivation to aerobic. We tested 61 aerobic rice genotypes، in which were developed at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)، together with 3 diverse local checks such as Fajr، Neda and Tarom. They were tested in an experimental site in Dash-e-Naaz، Sari، Mazandaran in 2009. Experiment was carried out in an augmented experiment design which check varieties were tested in an RCBD with 5 replicates. We evaluated some important agronomical traits including headings (HDG)، plant height (HT)، number of filled (FG) and non-filled grain (NFG) per panicle، grain length (GL) and width (GW)، 1000-grain weigth (TGW) together with some others which was observationaly scored. Analysis of collected data showed that 5 genotypes showed a better performance than the others in aerobic condition for most of the traits in experimental site. Hence، these selected aerobic rice genotypes along with Neda، the best local check which showed a good performance in aerobic condition، could be suggest to be used for further/details tests to select the best genotypes and develop related agronomic managements and apply in rice breeding programs for drought stress condition.